A good husband,father, politician and friend

On the very day that Dick Shenton passed away I was watching a television programme on one of the sports channels and this commentator was banging on and on about this golfer being ‘a great man’.

If the bloke said it once he must have said it three or four times in the space of about an hour. It seemed that every time the television cameras were on the golfer the commentator would tell viewers that ‘the great man’ was doing this, that or the other. As I remarked at the time, the golfer may well be very good at what he does but that scarcely qualifies him for the sort of sycophantic adulation being rendered by the commentator.

Our neighbours had by this time arrived for what my old mate Bill Custard might well have called a few New Year wets – ‘I thought for an awful moment that he wasn’t going to open the third bottle (of Scotch)’, I can recall Bill once remarking – and there followed a general discussion on what in our opinions would merit the description ‘great’ when conferred on an individual.

That chat, aided and abetted by a few slugs of a 1983 Calvados which had been lodged au Greffe in The Shed for far too long and was opened under the Chez Clement 30-year rule, went on for a while and ranged from international figures like John Kennedy, with voting among us divided in his case, to Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and many others, and then on to names familiar to those closer to home.

I suppose that on that particular day it was inevitable that the name of Sir Dick from the Docks should feature prominently in the discussion – along, it must be said, with a handful of other post-war Island politicians and, in a really up to date context, a present-day benefactor who is hopefully making a steady recovery from illness.

In relation to Sir Dick we didn’t actually reach a conclusion, not because anyone was reluctant to do so but simply because we got so wrapped up in reminiscences about him and his unique brand of Island politics – something which, as an online reader remarked, his family can be proud that he left a legacy of integrity, approachability and compassion.

One of my favourite stories concerned the very first time Dick was voted on to a delegation of Channel Island politicians for talks at the Home Office. Until then, I am told, those who held the reins of power had been reluctant to include him because of his deserved reputation for eschewing diplomatic language in favour of a bit of plain speaking.

They were all ushered into the meeting room and the Minister of State – Lord Elton, as I recall – entered, sat down, undid his watchstrap and placed the timepiece on the table in front of him. This was seized upon by Dick Shenton who made it clear that if the minister was pressed for time then he for one would prefer to adjourn the meeting and reconvene on a day when Lord Elton was less busy. As an independent account has it, the Member for Jersey (as he became known among members of the profession of journalism) said that he hadn’t travelled to London simply to be fobbed off with a short, ‘meet the Minister’ discussion.

Needless to say, Lord Elton apologised, both immediately and graciously, and the full discussion went ahead.

Another tale came from Herself and one of the rare occasions on which she actually went to the Big House to watch our elected representatives earning their crusts although, as she said the other evening, it was that long ago it might have been before they were placed on the payroll.

They were debating one of Dick’s private Member’s propositions, to do with the Island Development Committee, Herself recalls, with the IDC president being the late John Le Sueur, then Constable of St John. At the end of the debate Dick, clearly exasperated by what he said was the IDC president’s intransigence, said that if the two of them were married he would seek a divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty.

More often than not he would bring those propositions without even arranging beforehand for them to be seconded. A notable exception to this was one of the rare occasions on which he actually planned a debate – nearly 40 years ago when he brought a vote of no confidence against the then Postal Committee, at that time, given the very senior politicians on it, one of the strongest and most powerful of all States committees.

The strategy he adopted, in concert and complicity (it would have said on the charge sheet) with two other politicians who in very different ways also contributed to the sea change in Jersey politics initiated by Dick Shenton – Jane Sandeman and John de Carteret – actually brought down the committee.

From that day onwards the Island’s hitherto all-powerful political establishment was never the same again.

Dick Shenton’s death follows not that long after that of another proud Jerseyman and someone very much a contemporary – my old friend Lord Liron of Fauvic and St Malo. It would not be breaching any confidences for me to say that while Dick and René sometimes appeared to be at loggerheads publicly, behind the scenes they equally frequently would work in tandem, invariably for the benefit of Jersey and its people.

When last week we were discussing Dick and René, one of Dick’s fellow Catholics perhaps summed up what I think many will believe when he said: ‘It’ll be pretty lively in Heaven right now. God’s got His hands full with those two.’

Tributes far more eloquent than this have and will be paid. I will remember a good husband, father, politician and friend and, without any exaggeration, a great Jerseyman.